The Choices that We Make

First off, let me say that (lucky you) you'll be seeing a lot more of me around here in the new year.

I've put in my two weeks at my current job; the overnight schedule has all but destroyed my social life and internal clock, and on top of that there are only so many damaging and questionable changes that new ownership can make to an existing system before an employee is forced to conclude that he or she will be better off elsewhere.

I don't know yet where I'll end up working next, but I'd be hard pressed to find a worse setup for myself without trolling the fast-food chains for employment. Something's gotta go right sometime, folks!

Secondly: AIEEE

. . .

GAAHH OH GOD



Ahem.

Thirdly, lucky me, I'm able to schedule my entertainment dilemmas well in advance. Ice Cube (okay, technically "Snoop Dogg with Ice Cube", but aside from an appearance in one video game I haven't given a crap about Snoop Dogg since about 1996), Matt Mays, and Kid Koala will all be playing concerts in Winnipeg. Which is good! But they will all be playing concerts in Winnipeg on the same night -- January 23rd, 2007 -- with pretty much the same start time in the evening. Which is bad.

Choices, choices! What a world, what a world.

Spot the Priorities! Fun and Educational Entertainment for All

Sometimes in our crazy, fast-paced, mixed-up world, it can be hard to tell where your favourite newspaper stands. Do the writers and editors lean more to the right or more to the left? Which stories do they want to accentuate, and which do they want to downplay?

Well, wonder no longer! Now you can sort everything out, and have fun doing it too! That's right, it's the new game craze that's sweeping the exotic nation of Europe globe -- it's time to play Spot the Priorities!

Let's begin! Consider the following examples, and be ready to blurt out your conclusions at any time!

When first looking at a neatly folded copy of today's Winnipeg Free Press, the main headline -- and the middle third of the page -- focuses on the results of the Canadian Wheat Board directors' elections:



Likewise, when the paper is opened, the story takes up the entire effective content of the third page under the headline 'TOP NEWS':



Consider!

Now, with that in mind, here is the coverage alloted to the event by the Winnipeg Sun:



A two-paragraph, three sentence blurb buried in the bottom-right corner of page 18, in the Money section.

Spot the Priorities! Sure to be a hit at your next family game night!

Until next time, remember -- be wary, have fun, and don't trust anyone!

Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You [buy]

Ron Sexsmith w/ Jill Barber -- 'The Burt', Saturday, December 9th, 2006

I still haven't talked about the Tokyo Police Club show from a couple weeks ago; I blame work, of course, because work will not leave me be. I have pictures and ruminations and insights and everything for that one.

Not so for this concert. No pictures were taken, because A) I'd forgotten my camera, B) its batteries are dead anyway, and C) the intimidating signs at the entrance of the Walker -- sorry, the Burton Cummings -- suggest that attempting photography would have been a bad idea after all. And there are no major ruminations or insights to pass along, except that Matthew Barber popped up alongside Jill Barber (turns out they're siblings) for one song and I was all "Hey, cool, Matthew Barber!"

Suffice it to say that I am a boy who gets kicked around by love a lot, and listening to Ron Sexsmith magically makes absolutely everything better. My heart grew three sizes that day. I give this concert a million stars out of five, and any reviewer who would score it lower is a soulless and shambling monster. (Professionalism is for the professionals, and for some mysterious reason nobody has been willing to hire me so far. The mind boggles! But anyway.)

The next concert of note coming up is Econoline Crush (!); they're apparently playing way the hell out and gone at Canad Inns Windsor Park on Boxing Day, and though the schedules at work haven't been made that far I have a suspicion that they're going to make me work that night. And I'm not 100% convinced that Econoline Crush will be playing; last year the Zoo was advertising a Boxing Day concert by the Pursuit of Happiness (!!!), and that never actually ended up happening. So stay tuned for potential aargh-ing and sulking around!

The Santa Claus / Grey Cup Parade, Saturday, November 18th, 2006: A Retrospective

That's right -- A retrospective! A very cute way of dressing up how astoundingly late this piece is, if I do say so myself.

I blame my job, of course; I haven't had two days off in a row since the middle of September, and as late they've been calling me in for more shifts because everybody around me is quitting on account of they are far smarter and far more financially secure than I am. Another consideration in this post's delay is its sheer size; this is going to be massive (weighing in at nearly twenty kilobytes of text, and that's before HTML coding), so you'll probably want to grab a drink or something.

Regardless! My apologies for disappearing on you all; with any luck it won't happen again. On to the story.